What is your most facepalm-worthy moment regarding KSP?

[RealKerbal3x]

Back in the old days when I was still doing Mun missions, I sent 3 kerbonauts to a Mun orbit and managed to escape the Mun and get my Pe into Kerbin's atmosphere with one burn. I timewarped down until I entered the atmosphere. Now this is the point where I normally fire my parachutes so they'll come out automatically later. But one check of the staging sequence told me that I had completely forgotten them.

The next day, I loaded up KSP and the first thing the loading bar said was 'Forgetting Parachutes.....'

 I had to do the entire mission again.....

 

[Cavscout74]

My most recent facepalm-worthy moment was this morning while attempting to test SXT airbags on the Mun Ascent module on Kerbin.   I used multiple sepratrons to fling it up and away from the descent module, after which it was supposed to deploy airbags & drogue chutes.  First the whole thing went sideways, then there was a series of explosions when I attempted to stage the bags & drogues.  Next attempted to stage the main chutes but was WAY too low since the launch was sideways.  The ascent module blew up, leaving behind a pile of parachute mounts.  RIP Edsted Kerman, my first casualty on this career.  He was also my only pilot so far other than Val & Jeb who I'm trying hard not to kill.  His brother Tedsted is pretty mad at me too. 

Worst facepalm remains the accidental self-destruct of a full 8-seat tourist rocket on the pad due to a mis-staged self destruct charge.

 

Edited February 27, 2018 by Cavscout74

[KerbolExplorer]

so... i was lunching a rocket and whaen i staged to the swivel engine i found out it didnt gave any thrust

i was about to place a bug report when i realize

my thrust was at zero

[HalcyonSon]

On 2/25/2018 at 2:30 PM, RickInAZ said:

I was at a critical point in a complex flight, and wanted to create a named save. So, I quickly pressed alt-F4 and instantly killed KSP. 

I feel your pain.

On 2/25/2018 at 4:59 PM, Geonovast said:

I was just wondering where this thread went.

Know what happens when you stage fairings early and the pieces get reflected back to you?

You lose your entire solar array and half your thermal control system, that's what.

Same if you build your fairings too tight - even if you release them at zero throttle and over 70 km.  Surely fairings aren't there just to PROTECT the SENSITIVE solar panels and antennas?!  "Perfect gravity turn!  Fairings released!  Hey what's that glinting in the sunlight...??  Krud...  mission failed."

[Kernel Kraken]

For me? Probably the time I tried to build an SSTO. The launch went like this: Panthers on a Hundred. Afterburners on. Reach 80 M/s... Pull up. Because of physics my symmetrical plane veered into the SPH for some reason. *Facepalm*

[Kerbalstar]

On 2/27/2018 at 2:57 PM, HalcyonSon said:

I feel your pain.

Same if you build your fairings too tight - even if you release them at zero throttle and over 70 km.  Surely fairings aren't there just to PROTECT the SENSITIVE solar panels and antennas?!  "Perfect gravity turn!  Fairings released!  Hey what's that glinting in the sunlight...??  Krud...  mission failed."

Turn the ejection force up to 1000. I've had this too many times.

Edited March 1, 2018 by kerbalstar
Zeros

[SnailsAttack]

forgetting the stupid f ing ore tanks every single time

Edited February 28, 2018 by SnailsAttack

[Gargamel]

Sooooo....... After overclocking the warp on a direct return from minmus, I burn up in the atmo.  But the stupid little MJ pod immediately slows to terminal velocity, and will now take 'forever' to crash to the surface.  So I whip out the object tosser, and I'm back to the KSC main screen in no time.   Now I'm curious about if the thrower works in this screen too.   I fire one off, and yup, it works.  And I need to rebuild the VAB.  

On 2/26/2018 at 10:17 AM, Geonovast said:

Did this comic move? Or is it dead?  The link I have for it no longer works. 

[HalcyonSon]

14 hours ago, kerbalstar said:

Turn the ejection force up to 100. I've had this too many times.

Good idea, but it didn't work for me.  On closer inspection, the fairing juuust clipped the corner of the Gigantors in the VAB.  The moment they become "ship" and "debris," the dumped fairings interacted with the panels and destroyed them.  Ion powered interplanetary ships don't work well when you lose 3/4 of the solar panels.

[ZootinZack]

I've been playing KSP since the Mun was the only body in existence. I consider myself a pretty seasoned player.

Yet I routinely forget to put up antennae or backup solar panels, ending up with perfectly functional crafts fkng around Kerbol and no way to activate them.

It's a special kind of hell.

[InterplanetJanet]

On 2/27/2018 at 10:18 AM, MaxwellsDemon said:

I'd just like to add that those [facepalm-worthy] moments for me have been reduced (but not eliminated-- there's still room for operator error) by the KRASH system by the indefatigable linuxgurugamer.   

Indefatigable and possibly indeterminate as well {I wrote that just for the lulz }.  However, KRASH doesn't reduce those facepalm moments at all; it just keeps them out of the 'real' game...  and can make the learning moments happen without needing a year or two of warp-time. ("How can you go up a ladder but not down the exact same ladder?!?!" "Okay, you little ____s, if you can't get out of that crewed part, how did you get in?!?!" "Oh, uh, I guess a probe core would've been nice on the part which is supposed to operate autonomously..." "Wait, only 9 EC left?! Didn't I put batteries on this?!") Which is way more than worth it.

On 2/27/2018 at 2:35 AM, Antstar said:

Yup. I now use {KIS/KAS} as a matter of course, would have saved a lot of time and Xe

What I have done recently is 'cheat' ... in ~/GameData/KIS/settings.cfg , you can add anything you can find the programming-name of (sort of like a magickal Truename), into ALL manned seats (from this point onward, so unfortunately no retcons!). Unfortunately for me, I've only found the name of the electric screwdriver and the EVA propellant (maybe you should try some looking, dumb___?).

Edited March 1, 2018 by InterplanetJanet
Again with the check-the-crew-egress functions - this has saved me already dozens of times...

[RizzoTheRat]

8 hours ago, ZootinZack said:

Yet I routinely forget to put up antennae or backup solar panels, ending up with perfectly functional crafts fkng around Kerbol and no way to activate them.

Same here, which is why I routinely have some spare solar panels sitting on something in orbit that I can attach with KAS/KIS. 

 

However that also lead to a facepalm moment I was reminded of on another thread...  I designed a fairly early career Mun missions with a rover sat on the roof of the lander, the crew could then detach it using KAS/KIS and place it on the ground.  However once the crew landed on the Mun they had to wait for a hastily constructed mission to send a small KIS container out to them containing a spanner...

 

[Tyko]

5 hours ago, InterplanetJanet said:

Indefatigable and possibly indeterminate as well {I wrote that just for the lulz }.

As long as @linuxgurugamer is not inflammable 

[putnamto]

had to place a satelite around the mun for a farmer(why does a farmer need a sat around the mun?) anyways, after hours of planning the most efficiant path my little brain could muster i finnally go the sattelite to orbit around the mun with no dv left to find out that i was going the wrong direction.

[HolidayTheLeek]

I remember I sent a flying base (using stock propellers) to eve. Unfortunately I forgot to fill the base with Kerbals to live in it.

 

[Mike Mars]

On at least two occasions, I had two craft docked together in a CSM/LM configuration, and while attempting a burn to return to Kerbin, I fired both engines simultaneously, having forgotten to deactivate one.

Duh

MM

[MinimalMinmus]

I just had another...

Jeb managed to reach Mun in a very low tech ship, in a challenge in which money is rare. So, I wanted to get the "return from a Mun fly-by". I timewarped while Jeb was on an elliptic orbit between Kerbin and Mun, and I finally got it.

So, I came back to the tracking station... no ship?

On his 2nd pass, Jeb apparently impacted the Mun and died.

WHAT ARE THE ODDS AAAAROTPO¨TJSPTOIJKDFSGpoiOJDSFGpOSDJGPSDgiJDSPgij

[MaverickSawyer]

7 hours ago, MinimalMinmus said:

I just had another...

Jeb managed to reach Mun in a very low tech ship, in a challenge in which money is rare. So, I wanted to get the "return from a Mun fly-by". I timewarped while Jeb was on an elliptic orbit between Kerbin and Mun, and I finally got it.

So, I came back to the tracking station... no ship?

On his 2nd pass, Jeb apparently impacted the Mun and died.

WHAT ARE THE ODDS AAAAROTPO¨TJSPTOIJKDFSGpoiOJDSFGpOSDJGPSDgiJDSPgij

Apparently high enough.

[HeronRocketry]

Definitely, the time that I launched my ion tug, put it into orbit around the mun, then realized that I forgot the batteries and solar panels. Then, relaunching it with more engines and forgetting them AGAIN.  

[Gargamel]

Got a contract to take a specific (NPC?) Scientist to a LZ on the Mun to conduct a series of expirements.  At the same time, I was gearing up to staff the new Minmus station which also requires a number of scientists.  Wasn't paying attention, and I crewed the NPC onto the Minmus flight.  Hmph, oh well, she won't get deleted until completion or refusal of the contract, so I'll be fine.  She'll just have to put up with the 120 day rotation, then the mandatory R&R before heading off to the Mun.  

I work nights, so I usually go to bed as the sun is coming up.  I go to the KSC to shut it down, start that process, still having birds chirping over the speakers.  Task manager says it's gone.  But I spend 10 minutes trying to figure out why it is still making bird noises.   Realized the birds outside were waking up.   Off to bed for me with that one. 

[LoSBoL]

Probably not my worst, but the last one gave me a good giggle. Finished a Saturn V build and wanted to test the Launch Escape System.

So I put that magnificent beast on the launchpad and hit the spacebar and let the Saturn V get some height first before hitting the abort key. Great succes! It flew away taking my 3 kerbal with it, hit the spacebar a few times to get rid of the LES, the fairing, servicebay shielding and activate the parachutes. It all worked flawlessly. Hurray!

Then I switched to see what the remains of the Saturn V was doing, still going strong and speeding up to space, and then... 2 kerbals in the lower right corner caught my eye, auto assigned to the LEM by @Snark's BetterCrewAssignment.  

[Luc1fer]

On 11/2/2018 at 10:11 PM, Geonovast said:

Certainly not the worst, but the most recent.

Check.  Yo. Stagin'.

Boosters left without me, and the left one did a perfect arc to destroy the runway.  100% repeatable, because I did it twice.

oh god jajajaja

[Guapo]

First mission since i hadn't been playing for about 2+ years, slapped together a quick SRB, capsule, parachute, and go!

....hmm, apparently fins are no longer an optional thing. 

*sweeps Jebediah up from across the landscape* (the capsule actually survived the first 2 or 3 bounces!)

On 04/03/2018 at 10:40 PM, MinimalMinmus said:

On his 2nd pass, Jeb apparently impacted the Mun and died.

WHAT ARE THE ODDS AAAAROTPO¨TJSPTOIJKDFSGpoiOJDSFGpOSDJGPSDgiJDSPgij

With Jebediah Kerman? It's practically a guarantee. He probably got out and pushed the capsule with his EVA pack to make sure it happened.

[Gilph]

Sometimes, it's really dark in space and on the surface,  and sometimes a Kerbal has to EVA into the darkness to do stuff. For about 18 months, I would squint and fumble about until I clicked the light button at the top of the screen and found that Kerbals have lights on top of their helmet.

[Lisias]

Until the moment, my biggest blunt was a good landing by the book (that one you can walk from). Unfortunately, the last landing the airstrip ever saw.

Don't ask how I did it. I never managed to do that again. ;-)